In a communication method, when a terminal device initiates establishment of a session of an Ethernet type, a virtual local area network management function entity in a communications system may determine a virtual local area network identifier of a user group to which the terminal device belongs. In this way, a user plane function entity in the session of the terminal device may allocate a plurality of virtual ports to a virtual local area network whose identifier is the virtual local area network identifier and may broadcast the Ethernet broadcast frame on the plurality of virtual ports.

Systems, methods and computer-readable storage media are provided for provisioning network inter-connections and extensions to computing infrastructure. In one embodiment, a system can receive a request from a client to establish a network connection between a private network and a remote network, the request including a selection of a virtual network residing at the private network; establish a transit connection between the virtual network and an exchange port established in association with the private network; establish a first network connection between the exchange port and an intermediary cross connect network; establish a second network connection between the intermediary cross connect network and the remote network; and extend a virtual local area network (VLAN) connected to the virtual network of the client at the private network to the remote network via the network connection, the network connection comprising the first network connection and the second network connection.

Techniques for uplink connectivity determination are disclosed. In an example, a Frame Link Module (FLM) in a frame, belonging to a group of frames connected in a ring network, may generate an uplink discovery packet. The FLM may determine, based on a Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) packet received by the standby uplink from a customer network accessing the ring that the standby uplink has a link to the customer network. The FLM may forward the uplink discovery packet to the standby uplink via a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface. The FLM may send the uplink discovery packet to the customer network through the standby uplink directed to an owner FLM. The owner FLM may monitor receipt of the uplink discovery packet from the customer network through a current active uplink and on successful receipt may determine that the standby uplink and switches in the customer network are correctly configured.

A bidirectional out-of-band management (OOBM) dongle comprises a serial port for receiving console traffic from a console port of a managed switch and an Ethernet port for receiving management port traffic from a management port of the managed switch. In operation, the OOBM dongle multiplexes, via an optional adapter, the console traffic and the management port traffic and generates Ethernet traffic that is then communicated, via an OOBM port on the dongle, to an OOBM switch port of an OOBM switch that acts as a power sourcing device for the OOBM dongle.

A packet-transmission method, a local edge device and a machine-readable storage medium are provided. The method includes: receiving a first notification message from an opposite edge device, parsing out a first host route from the first notification message, and adding a first forwarding table entry to a software forwarding table, wherein the first forwarding table entry includes a correspondence between the first host route and an interface receiving the first notification message; inquiring, after receiving a packet, a hardware forwarding table according to a destination address of the packet, if there is no forwarding table entry matched with the destination address in the hardware forwarding table, inquiring the software forwarding table according to the destination address of the packet, if there is a forwarding table entry matched with the destination address in the software forwarding table, sending the packet according to the forwarding table entry matched with the destination address.

In general, this disclosure describes a programmable network platform for dynamically programming a cloud exchange to provide a layer three (L3) routing instance as a service to customers of the cloud exchange. In one example, a cloud exchange comprises an L3 network located within a data center and configured with an L3 routing instance for an enterprise; and for the L3 routing instance, respective first and second attachment circuits for first and second cloud service provider networks co-located within the data center, wherein the L3 routing instance stores a route to a subnet of the second cloud service provider network to cause the L3 routing instance to forward packets, received from the first cloud service provider network via the first attachment circuit, to the second cloud service provider network via the second attachment circuit.

Techniques are described by which a network management system (NMS) provides a common user interface (UI) to enable a user to collectively configure network devices to establish an EVPN topology. For example, an NMS is configured to: generate data representative of a common UI comprising UI elements representing a plurality of network devices to be configured in an EVPN topology; receive, via the common UI, an indication of a user input selecting one or more of the UI elements representing selected network devices; generate UI elements representing a plurality of ports of the selected network devices; receive, via the common UI, an indication of a user input selecting the UI elements representing one or more selected ports; and generate, based on the one or more selected network devices and one or more selected ports, topology relationship information of the one or more selected devices to establish the EVPN topology.

A communication method and a device, to implement service isolation of an Ethernet broadcast frame. In this method, when a terminal device initiates establishment of a session of an Ethernet type, a virtual local area network management function entity in a communications system may determine a virtual local area network identifier of a user group to which the terminal device belongs. In this way, a user plane function entity in the session of the terminal device may allocate a plurality of virtual ports to a virtual local area network whose identifier is the virtual local area network identifier, and broadcast the Ethernet broadcast frame on the plurality of virtual ports.

A bidirectional out-of-band management (OOBM) dongle comprises a serial port for receiving console traffic from a console port of a managed switch and an Ethernet port for receiving management port traffic from a management port of the managed switch. In operation, the OOBM dongle multiplexes, via an optional adapter, the console traffic and the management port traffic and generates Ethernet traffic that is then communicated, via an OOBM port on the dongle, to an OOBM switch port of an OOBM switch that acts as a power sourcing device for the OOBM dongle.

An example branch gateway includes processing circuitry, memory including instructions, and a plurality of ports. The branch gateway transmits, from a plurality of ports, a first broadcast message. The branch gateway receives, in response to the first broadcast message, response messages on respective ports. The branch gateway determines, based on a receipt order of the response messages, an identifying address from a first response message. The branch gateway assigns the respective port for each response message to a unique VLAN. The branch gateway determines, for each port assigned to a unique VLAN, a link health parameter. The branch gateway selects a primary port to connect to an activation server of a WAN. The branch gateway selects a secondary port to connect to the activation server.